Columbia River Crossing barrels toward Salem, critics in its wake

View full sizeWorkers at Greenberry Industrial in Vancouver shape pieces of a 300-ton ship loader to be barged to the Port of Portland. The 150-foot-tall loader will fit beneath the Interstate 5 Bridge, but would be blocked by the Columbia River Crossing because of the proposed span's 116-foot vertical clearance. Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian

But this month Pond, whose Greenberry Industrial company makes drill rigs for Alaska's North Slope, was thwarted by something far larger: the proposed Columbia River Crossing, which is scheduled to be voted on Monday in the Oregon House.

But the committee brushed off a lift-span amendment filed by Republican Sen. Betsy Close, of Greenberry's Corvallis home district. She said later the $3.4 billion CRC had the momentum of a freight train.

"That's a good name for it," Close said, "the freight train bridge."

If so, it's a tremendously complex train, bolted together with politics, legal requirements, engineering and sheer willpower. Those at the wheel say it's too late, as the contraption gains speed, for major changes.

The House will consider a bill Monday authorizing $450 million in bonds expected to be matched by Washington state. Supporters are confident the House will pass the measure, which the Senate will consider as soon as March 4.

With Gov. John Kitzhaber's signature on a bill, Oregon will have completed its main approvals in a matter of weeks for the state's biggest-ever public-works project, scheduled to break ground next year. Legislative leaders fast-tracked the process, skipping Ways and Means Committee review.

Opponents maintain that even after years of public testimony, many of their perspectives were heard but never considered. Even proponents are hard-pressed to describe the bridge as ideal.

"This is the art of the possible," said Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, at a hearing Feb. 18. "It ain't perfect."

Managers of the Columbia River Crossing, a bi-state entity administering the project, say speed is crucial to keep the span near the head of the queue for $850 million from the Federal Transit Administration. They say applying for that money this year would put the project in line for between $900 million and $1.3 billion in federal toll-backed bonds, on top of $400 million from the Federal Highway Administration.

View full sizeAn illustration of the CRC at the formerly proposed 95-foot vertical clearance. CRC officials say that 99 percent of Columbia River vessel traffic would fit beneath the bridge at the newly proposed 116-foot clearance. Columbia River Crossing

But Portland economist Joe Cortright says the window is illusory. "They've been talking about a window for the last five years," said Cortright, who consults for Plaid Pantry stores, a project opponent. "In fact the federal government hasn't gone away."

Opponents are already shifting focus to Olympia, where the Washington legislature will consider its $450 million contribution. They continue fighting the project in Clark and Clackamas counties, targeting light rail, a controversial component essential for federal funding.

Critics say:

-- Toll revenues will fall short by hundreds of millions of dollars because of outdated, flawed traffic forecasts. Updated numbers that officials promised by January haven't shown up. Proponents say not to worry, because the bill requires an investment-grade financial analysis.

-- Officials haven't said who would be liable for cost overruns. Pressed last week, Egan said: "If there is anything over, we would see that as a shared cost between us and the state of Washington." The states could appropriate money or issue more bonds, he said, adding that the federal government might help, too.

-- Legislators haven't designated a source for the 30 years of $27 million debt payments on Oregon's $450 million bonds. Kitzhaber said he'd hoped the bill would provide new revenue. Failing that, the project will cut into funds for other state highway projects.

-- The bill doesn't predicate Oregon's contribution on a specific amount of federal funding. But managers cite backing from the Obama Administration.

A do-over design

The span's design, a far cry from a Golden Gate Bridge that would make an inspiring statement as a Northwest gateway, is cobbled together, the result of a forced 11th-hour revamp.

Officials decided to raise the vertical clearance from 95 feet to 116 feet. The change added $30 million to the sticker price, said Patricia McCaig, CRC director of government relations and communications. To this day, CRC officials lack an illustration of the latest bridge version with the new height and highway grade.

"I absolutely do not think it's the worst combination," Egan said. "What we've continued to do throughout the process is to narrow the impact on the upriver shippers. You can't discount any one of them."

McCaig said that as part of its latest review, the CRC did once again consider a lift span, which had been rejected partly because of the increased highway accidents it would cause. She said a consultant determined that, given the composite-deck-truss bridge type already decided, a lift would cost $250 million and be "virtually the most complicated, complex, heaviest lift load ever built."

Officials concluded that providing mitigation to Greenberry, Oregon Iron Works and Thompson Metal Fab would cost less than $250 million. They are negotiating to relocate them, pay them off or find a downriver staging area for completing large products.

Pond, of Greenberry, said he's cautiously optimistic about those talks. But as a manager of 175 workers making about $35 an hour in Vancouver, he said, "I don't have any interest in taking a check and saying, 'Here's the money I would have made.'"

Big, big business

Pond was 4 when his father started Greenberry, which began by fabricating equipment for wood-products companies. In 2006, the University of Washington business graduate and CPA bought out his dad as majority owner.

Greenberry expanded to its leased Vancouver quarters in 2010. The newness of the move explains why CRC managers didn't come across the company initially, McCaig said.

At Greenberry, Thompson and Oregon Iron Works, it's difficult to see how anyone could miss their three sprawling factories. The companies occupy cavernous buildings where 38,000 workers produced Liberty ships and other war vessels. Waterlogged slips remain visible at the historic site that launched a ship a week during the 1940s.

This month Oregon Iron Works is building big gates for a California dam. The Clackamas company employs as many as 100 at the Vancouver site, where it has operated since 1979.

Thompson upgraded its plant in 2004 to make North Slope rigs. It's making giant pieces for a new Bay Area Rapid Transit project and preparing to build the new Sellwood Bridge's steel structure. With $75 million in annual sales, Thompson employs more than 300.

John Rudi, Thompson president, supports a new crossing. He worries about his company's future, but has given up on the idea of a lift span.

Not so Jason Pond, of Greenberry. A single bridge lift in the dead of night could allow passage of a barge carrying a $500 million order, he said.

"I still think you ought to build it right the first time," Pond said of the span, which he supports. "But that's me. I'm a constructor."

Pond met with several legislators in Salem, but didn't feel he changed anyone's mind. He has pressed his cause in Olympia and Washington, D.C. He places hope in the U.S. Coast Guard, which must issue a permit for the bridge and could veto the project in the interests of navigation. That decision is expected by Sept. 30.

Greenberry, with $182 million in annual sales, is taking new orders for massive North Slope rigs. It's building a gigantic ship loader that will fill soda ash vessels at the Port of Portland. Once completed, the 300-ton behemoth will move across a crushed-rock yard onto a barge at a prized deep-draft slip.

At 150 feet, the $10 million ship loader will fit under the I-5 lift span. It would be blocked, however, by the new bridge.

Kris Strickler, Oregon director of the CRC, said a lift span is impractical for many reasons. The Federal Aviation Administration could find its towers to be a hazard for Pearson Field aircraft, for example.

But Pond said it's a mistake to create a 100-year bottleneck on the second largest river in the United States. On the East Coast, he said, bridges are being raised.

Worldwide, Pond said, energy equipment is getting bigger, not smaller. "The wave energy projects that we're looking at," he said, "no one would have been thinking about that 10 years ago."